Not many people across the nation gave Wisconsin much of a chance to beat the high-powered Miami Hurricanes, especially after the Badgers embarrassing loss to FSU in their bowl game last year.
This isn’t last year.
Wisconsin used smash-mouth offense and clamp-down defense to beat the Canes 20-14 in the Champs Sports Bowl, giving the Big Ten their first bowl win in the 2009-2010 campaign.
For our friends out west who have been hanging their hat on the “Ohio State will lose because the Big Ten sucks” hook….let’s look at the progress of the bowl season so far.
December 22nd – Las Vegas Bowl
18th-ranked Oregon State, the team that was one drive away from being the champion of the Pac-10 gets humiliated by BYU, 44-20. That’s right…the second-place team in the Pac-10 got more than doubled up. By Mormons.
December 23rd – Poinsettia Bowl
California struggles through most of the key moments of the game, turning the ball over three times in a 37-27 loss to Utah. Cal at one point allowed the Utes to rip off a 37-7 run that lasted more than three quarters. They lost by 10. To Mormons.
December 26 – Emerald Bowl
USC shows that maybe they have some bowl experience and the Trojans turn a close halftime score into a 24-13 win over Boston College. Don’t get too excited, Pac-10 fans. Notre Dame beat BC also.
December 29 – EagleBank Bowl
UCLA struggles the entire game against Temple, trailing by 11 points at halftime before pulling out a 30-21 win over the Owls. Temple realized that they were Temple sometime around the start of the 4th quarter and the game unraveled. But it still took UCLA a long time to put away Temple. Yes, Temple.
The Pac-10 is 2-2 in bowl games, and none of them have been impressive for the conference, save the great game by USC QB Matt Barkley.
Meanwhile, the 15th-ranked Miami Hurricanes just got pushed around by Wisconsin’s special brand of midwestern football.
There’s lots of games to be played left in the bowl season, but the “weak conference” argument is certainly losing it’s power as of this moment, wouldn’t you agree?
Good thing for the Pac-10 that there’s no more teams with a multitude of Mormons, huh?
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